WeWork Planned a Residential Utopia. It Hasn't Turned Out That Way. WeGrow to close
WeWork Planned a Residential Utopia. It Hasn’t Turned Out That Way.
Adam Neumann, the company’s ousted founder, once said there would be WeLive apartments around the globe. But now, it has only two sites and has been under investigation.
fter first pledging to upend the way people worked, WeWork vowed to change how they lived: WeLive, a sleek dormitory for working professionals with free beer, arcade games in the laundry room and catered Sunday dinners, would spread around the world.
It has not quite turned out that way.
WeLive has not expanded beyond its first two locations and efforts to open sites in India and Israel have collapsed. In addition to long-term rentals, WeLive offers rooms at its only locations, in New York City and Virginia, for nightly stays on hotel sites.
In fact, New York City has investigated whether units legally meant to be long-term apartments were being advertised as hotel rooms in WeLive’s Lower Manhattan building once billed as a residential utopia with shared living space, communal meals and social gatherings.
Fueled by the charismatic vision of its co-founder, Adam Neumann, WeWork charted meteoric growth that wowed investors and propelled the company to a $47 billion valuation, one of the highest for a start-up. But that all came crashing down in recent weeks, as its push to go public revealed huge losses with no signs of profitability any time soon.
WeWork’s main business is renting out attractively designed office space, but it once projected that WeLive would become integral to the company’s future, potentially driving billions of dollars in annual revenue as it extended into America’s largest cities. Instead, WeLive has become something of a metaphor for the entire company: big promises, but lackluster results.
A WeWork spokeswoman said the company remained committed to WeLive.
“WeWork will continue to operate our existing WeLive locations, delivering an exceptional, community-based living experience for our members in New York City and Northern Virginia every day,” the spokeswoman, Gwen Rocco, said in a statement.
On Friday, the company announced that another subsidiary, the for-profit private school WeGrow, would close next year. The school, which opened in 2018 in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, is led by Rebekah Neumann, Mr. Neumann’s wife.
Like its corporate siblings, WeGrow vowed to revolutionize its industry — elementary school — and pledged to be “elevating the collective consciousness of the world by expanding happiness and unleashing every human’s superpowers.” The class day includes traditional academic subjects as well as yoga instruction, and offers lunches made in a meat-free cafeteria.
Tuition this year at WeGrow, which has about 100 students, started at $36,000 for 3-year-olds.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/nyregion/welive-nyc-wework.html?action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Metropolitan
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